Endwalker is pretty great

[Myon88]

I'd hate for SE to come away from these forums with the wrong impression, so I'm going to do something pretty rare and illustrate why this expansion has been a major success.

• The two Endwalker ultimates stand as the greatest ones to date
  Even if this were literally the only thing I mentioned, it would be enough. If you do any serious raiding at all there's no question about this. Both DSR and TOP managed to successively raise the bar for ultimates. It would've been one thing if they were just difficult fights for difficulty's sake, but they artfully built on their source narratives as well. We got a very intriguing Heavensward AU, as well as further insight into the Omega raid story in light of Endwalker developments.
  
  The ultimates being of this quality have largely contributed to the high end raiding crowd being willing to bite their tongue on stuff they aren't as happy about - 2min homogenization and the like. And that notwithstanding, TOP in particular seems to have been designed with a lot of knowing and cheeky nuances that repudiate the supposed '2min meta' too.

• The portrait system is super fun
  I don't know about you guys but I think glamour and g-posing are some of the most important pieces of content this game has. It is the one edge that FFXIV has over its more visceral peers like WoW, and it's important for it to cultivate that edge.
  
  Through the power of a nice looking portrait, its also ushered in an era of DPS players getting comms that were previously monopolized by the tanks and healers.

• Crystalline Conflict has been a massive improvement over The Feast
  On my datacenter, queues for casual matches are consistently <5mins starting from the mid-afternoon to past midnight. This would be an inconceivable level of engagement for The Feast back when it existed. By any metric you can name, the PvP rework has been a success.
  
  I know some Feast vets are glum about its slower, more strategic gameplay being replaced, but let me remind you that Lord of Verminion still exists. The Feast wasn't even the most competitive PvP activity in it's own game. Despite this, its playerbase was pampered with dozens of exclusive mounts and outfits over its lifespan. After a run like that, surely you can find it in yourselves to be gracious about passing the torch to CC.
  
  PvP is evergreen content and infinitely replayable due to the human element involved. It's very important to get right as a result, and I'm glad their efforts paid off this time.

• Side Content
  Orthos and Island Sanctuary I consider equivalent to the past expansions' equivalents in Bozja and the like. It largely comes down to a matter of taste as to which one strikes your fancy.
  
  It's worth noting that something very interesting is going to be happening on islands next patch - it's getting an outdoor furnishing quota of 80 items. Even large mansions only have a 40 item limit, as a result, outdoor housing builds have never received particularly strong interest from housing enthusiasts. A quota of 80 will enable builds that dwarf in scope anything that has been possible up to this date. For housing designers, this is going to be an earthshaking addition.

• Endwalker's Story
  Not much left to say that hasn't already been said. Endwalker's MSQ put a very neat bow on the story so far, with highs only rivaled by Shadowbringers. WoW tried similarly to frame Shadowlands as the end of an era, and they failed miserably. Destiny 2 is currently trying to do the same, and it's looking like they'll soon follow in WoW's footsteps. It's difficult to overstate what a coup this has been.

[LianaThorne]

No opinion on the first as I haven't taken the time to do either yet.

The portrait system is cool but is also a pain in the ass to get working properly. As many have said and I agree with, the earlier versions were better and easier to use. Praying that they eventually just revert back to how it was.

CC is more enjoyable than Feast, I'll agree. However the same issues in Feast still persist into CC and have made me drop the game mode entirely outside of Frontline.

I disagree with Island Sanctuary being remotely comparable to Bozja or Eureka both in terms of scale and effort needed to accomplish them. I actually struggle to think of anything that could be compared between the two outside of they're both instanced zones. In terms of Orthos, I enjoy it a lot and don't really have any complaints in regards to how they did it.

ShB > EW for sure. It had some good moments (and the ending gave me the feels) but I found myself a bit bored with the pacing compared to how I felt playing through ShB. I tend to enjoy stories more though that are mostly dark and unsettling, compared to EW's which felt like it was trying more to throw in fluffy moments to keep the story from leaning into the same direction completely as ShB. Not trying to saw EW didn't have its darker moments, just it didn't feel like the same kind of dark....ya know what I mean? Was just a different vibe.

All my opinion, feel free to disagree. I'll probably forget this thread exists tomorrow anyway.

[WantlessYoYo]

The portrait system is super fun
I don't know about you guys but I think glamour and g-posing are some of the most important pieces of content this game has. It is the one edge that FFXIV has over its more visceral peers like WoW, and it's important for it to cultivate that edge.

While this is true, it's a fact as well it breaks easily for almost to no reason a lot of times, when in it's beta version worked perfectly enough
Tho i would like more posing options, i'm surprised we haven't got our own job abilities in order to pose as well when we have the pvp LB's

Crystalline Conflict has been a massive improvement over The Feast

CC is such a great game mode ruined by the base of the game itself, if it wasn't for how the server ticks work it would be such a blast to play
It's super good and as you said a massive improvement but man it just sucks because of how the game is built

Side Content

Not gonna talk about sanctuary because it's not my cup of tea, reason i didn't go past rank 7, but can do about Orthos, and well while it's, fun, i midly like some of the changes they made on the middle part with floors being less focused on autos/kiting and more on oneshots, at the end is more of the same and sadly after your 4-6th clear you really don't have a reason to replay it outside the rare loot
Can't say i didn't enjoy it but i doubt people coming back to it more than those 4 times, specially since the mount can be brought and the solo titles along the DD community is kind of a niche

[aveyond-dreams]

The two Endwalker ultimates stand as the greatest ones to date
If you do any serious raiding at all, there's no question about this. Both DSR and TOP managed to successively raise the bar for ultimates. It would've been one thing if they were just difficult fights for difficulty's sake, but they artfully built on their source narratives as well. We got a very intriguing Heavensward AU, as well as further insight into the Omega raid story in light of Endwalker developments.

The ultimates being of this quality have largely contributed to the high end raiding crowd being willing to bite their tongue on stuff they aren't as happy about - 2min homogenization and the like. And that notwithstanding, TOP in particular seems to have been designed with a lot of knowing and cheeky nuances that repudiate the supposed '2min meta' too.

Perhaps we’re remembering things differently but the only thing I recall TOP raising was the alarm bells of the amount of bugs and glitches it launched in. The high end raiders I interacted with had the general feedback of it being clearly untested and unfun.

No one here is “willing to bite their tongue” regarding 2min homogenization. Having a bunch of jobs that are little more than copies of each other with different animations does not a fun MMORPG make.

The portrait system is super fun
I don't know about you guys but I think glamour and g-posing are some of the most important pieces of content this game has. It is the one edge that FFXIV has over its more visceral peers like WoW, and it's important for it to cultivate that edge.

Through the power of a nice looking portrait, its also ushered in an era of DPS players getting comms that were previously monopolized by the tanks and healers.

Yes I imagine that for people who have a fascination with games akin to the Sims are having a wonderful time with portraits, which to date still break too often to be of any use. Some of us came for a video game instead of a dress-up simulator, but it’s clear to which crowd they are choosing to pander to now.

The people who were upset that they actually had to put in some effort in order to have cool looking equipment for their character. Hence the state of these relics to which they feel entitled to.

Side Content
Orthos and Island Sanctuary I consider equivalent to the past expansions' equivalents in Bozja and the like. It largely comes down to a matter of taste as to which one strikes your fancy.

It's worth noting that something very interesting is going to be happening on islands next patch - it's getting an outdoor furnishing quota of 80 items. Even large mansions only have a 40 item limit, as a result, outdoor housing builds have never received particularly strong interest from housing enthusiasts.A quota of 80 will enable builds that dwarf in scope anything that has been possible up to this date. For housing designers, this is going to be an earthshaking addition.

In what way is a Cookie Clicker Sanctuary: the zone any way equivalent to Bozja with its skirmishes and critical engagements? The extremely limited housing functions it’s set to be updated to have do not make up for the sort of content people used to log in daily for. By all means enjoy your tropical island fantasy if you wish, but that does little to satisfy those of us who wanted a house in any of the other biomes this game has.

Endwalker's Story
Not much left to say that hasn't already been said. Endwalker's MSQ put a very neat bow on the story so far, with highs only rivaled by Shadowbringers. WoW tried similarly to frame Shadowlands as the end of an era, and they failed miserably. Destiny 2 is currently trying to do the same, and it's looking like they'll soon follow in WoW's footsteps. It's difficult to overstate what a coup this has been.

Yes. Endwalker put a bow and killed off many ongoing storylines all at once in order to rush us headfirst into a Void storyline that so far has very little of interest going on. And I’m saying that as an FFIV fan.

A coup of sorts took place all right, but it isn’t the one you’ve described over the course of your post.

[Velvet_Lunarfang]

Perhaps we’re remembering things differently but the only thing I recall TOP raising was the alarm bells of the amount of bugs and glitches it launched in. The high end raiders I interacted with had the general feedback of it being clearly untested and unfun.

No one here is “willing to bite their tongue” regarding 2min homogenization. Having a bunch of jobs that are little more than copies of each other with different animations does not a fun MMORPG make.



Yes I imagine that for people who have a fascination with games akin to the Sims are having a wonderful time with portraits, which to date still break too often to be of any use. Some of us came for a video game instead of a dress-up simulator, but it’s clear to which crowd they are choosing to pander to now.

The people who were upset that they actually had to put in some effort in order to have cool looking equipment for their character. Hence the state of these relics to which they feel entitled to.



In what way is a Cookie Clicker Sanctuary: the zone any way equivalent to Bozja with its skirmishes and critical engagements? The extremely limited housing functions it’s set to be updated to have do not make up for the sort of content people used to log in daily for. By all means enjoy your tropical island fantasy if you wish, but that does little to satisfy those of us who wanted a house in any of the other biomes this game has.



Yes. Endwalker put a bow and killed off many ongoing storylines all at once in order to rush us headfirst into a Void storyline that so far has very little of interest going on. And I’m saying that as an FFIV fan.

A coup of sorts took place all right, but it isn’t the one you’ve described over the course of your post.

hit the nail on the head. They basically trying to white knight the EW expansion so to divert attention from the real issues

[Kaurhz]

hit the nail on the head. They basically trying to white knight the EW expansion so to divert attention from the real issues

Imagine being this incapable of coming to terms with the fact that someone has a different opinion to you, that your default response is to cry "White Knight".

[Ardeth]

The current story is so bad that I feel like I'm playing a World of Warcraft storyline. And not a good one. Maybe once we kill discount, great value, Morgoth, it will get better, but I doubt it.

[Kaurhz]

At any rate...

The story I like in terms of thematic, but I don't think it was able to really reach a good balance between threat/urgency and otherwise more 'lighthearted' moments, which is where the base story for Shadowbringers really hit the nail on the head. For the most part, I attribute this to the simple fact that Endwalker was crunched into a single expansion, and Shadowbringers didn't really give an appropriate build-up for this. I think it was sort of obvious that the initial build-up was done with 2 expansions in mind. Had they had the proper build-up, it could have been better

The portrait system is great, though I do want to see it expanded upon, as per https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ishment-Plates

I like IS, but it does need some more ongoing updates, which I hope they'll continue to do. It's different strokes for different folks. I personally do prefer it over exploratory content, seeing as they've been doing exploratory in some fashion since 2015, so a break from this is appreciated. Granted, I would have liked to see the relics be more diversified than just tomes - But in the same vein, this is nice motivation to work on hunts.

[Stormpeaks]

The two Endwalker ultimates stand as the greatest ones to date

I am pretty certain that most of my friends actually found it the most boring ones, however I respect your opinion if you found it that amazing.

The portrait system is super fun

It literally breaks all the time, it's one of the absolute worst systems that is in the game right now, you cant even change glams without breaking it, sometimes when getting in/out of content, it also breaks, sure, the idea is fun, the implementation however...

Crystalline Conflict has been a massive improvement over The Feast

CC is 100% better, but then again that wasnt hard, feast is terrible, still balance is still not the best, but CC is better I agree.

Side Content
Orthos and Island Sanctuary I consider equivalent to the past expansions' equivalents in Bozja and the like. It largely comes down to a matter of taste as to which one strikes your fancy.

Lol I'm very sorry what ? Orthos and IS comparable to Bozja Eureka ? Not in any way, in particular IS, IS is literally an automated farm that you visit one every week or week and a half, how is this a good comparison ?

Endwalker's Story

I wont talk on the story as I dont follow it, but it seem mostly negative from what I hear from friends and read from the forums

[Theodric]

I wouldn't consider Island Sanctuary to be the equivalent of either Bozja or Eureka. It's closer to the garrisons of World of Warcraft, a feature added to that game back in 2014.

Bozja and Eureka revolve around combat. Island Sanctuary revolves around clicking on nodes and then navigating menus to get the opportunity to wait for a timer to conclude.

It's also largely solo focused. Even if you invite someone to your island, there's not much the guest can actually do. At least when it came to Bozja and Eureka you had that sense of 'bringing the server together' as they worked towards shared goals. Ishgard's reconstruction system captured something similar and we got that in addition to Bozja!